Lesson 15: Examining Through Lenses
Lesson of the Week:
How to See the Value You Provide?
The point of a newsletter is to provide value to your readers. Ok, sounds simple. But what does this mean?
Before sending your newsletter, we suggest looking at it through different lenses. If you can see these qualities in your newsletter, you’re definitely providing value to your readers.
Give vs. Ask Ratio
Types of Value
POP - Personal/Observational/Playful
IPO-able Ideas
Rhetoric - Ethos/Pathos/Logos
Give vs. Ask Ratio
Are you giving more than you’re asking? Are you credible in what you’re giving? Giving without credibility is actually asking, as your reader needs to do homework to believe you. Aim for a high Give/Ask Ratio in your newsletter - tons of giving without much asking.
Valuable Content
We now understand the importance of Giving, but how can you give? According to Ed Latimore, a writer can provide value by 1) entertaining, 2) inspiring, 3) providing solutions, 4) educating, and 5) empathizing. By empathizing, he means persuading the reader to feel better about their problems.
Any of the 5 is fine, but to really Give it should be at least one of them.
POP - Personal - Observational - Playful
From David Perell, make your writing personal, observational, and playful to increase reader engagement. Include personal stories. Show what is interesting to you, and connect the dots to form patterns. Use metaphors, interesting vocabulary, and cultural references to bring life to your writing.
IPO-able ideas
We teach the concept of Idea Public Offerings (IPOs) in Newsletter Launchpad. Newsletters are a safe space where you can incubate ideas until they’re ready for public dissemination. We’ll go deeper into this concept in the course. IPOs build your audience because they’re the ideas that you stand for. Scan your newsletter for them. Another way to think about them: What ideas are in your newsletter that you would bring up at the dinner table?
Rhetoric - Pathos - Ethos - Logos
The core concepts of Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric, the science of persuasion. Pathos - emotion. Ethos - authority. Logos - logic. You don’t need all three, but you need at least one in order to persuade your audience.
Newsletter of the Week:
Alex & Books writes a weekly newsletter where he summarizes one book, gives advice, suggests 3 podcasts, and gives a reading lesson and a quote. If you look at his newsletter through the five lenses, what do you see?
Tip of the Week:
Half the fun of a newsletter is hearing from your friends. Ask your readers what they thought of your newsletter. And make sure you reply.
Thank you for reading. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with a friend or two.
Louie & Chris
P.S. you can respond directly to this email. We read every reply. We'd love to hear from you.